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1.1Achieve (a result) by manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency.

‘a total freedom to gerrymander the results they want’

‘A gerrymandered election does not make for a democracy.’

noun

An instance of gerrymandering.

‘The deliberate sectarian gerrymander that the Northern state was in the first instance has now disappeared, eroded by demographics.’

‘He said the Government's electoral reforms would create a gerrymander, where electoral boundaries are created to give one party an advantage.’

‘There is also the issue of the potential for an institutionalised gerrymander, as recipients of various forms of government transfer payments outnumber those who actually pay any income tax.’

‘In a gerrymander in 1923, Unionists wrested control from Nationalists, an arrangement reinforced in the 1930s.’

‘Despite an electoral gerrymander, the opposition managed to more than double its parliamentary seats from 22 to 45.’

‘Umno continues to benefit from a gerrymander that favours rural Malay seats on peninsular Malaya as well as Sabah and Sarawak in northern Borneo.’

‘This is a government that blatantly indulged in open gerrymander, for example the re-allocation of defence force votes among surrounding marginal seats.’

‘Despite a gerrymander, the number of opposition seats rose from 22 to 45, mostly at the expense of the ruling party.’

‘The Green's control of the council, while significant, was in fact an own goal created by the Labor Party's failed gerrymander.’

‘One of the assumptions many people have of his long time in power was that it was only able to occur because the gerrymander kept Labor out of office.’

‘Nationalist resentment at the gerrymander was amplified by the determination of Unionists to define the centre of the city, enclosed within its plantation walls, as a loyalist public space.’

‘They say the current Congressional map is just an old Democratic gerrymander.’

‘I'm not crazy about the idea of Republicans using redistricting reform to knock off Democrats while ramming through the most outlandish gerrymanders in the states they control.’

‘Wary of democracy, he helped enshrine a rural gerrymander in the Legislative Council of which he was a member 1890-1916.’

‘The Labor Party has thrown one of its basic principles out the window by now supporting the gerrymander in Western Australia.’

‘Labor held office, intermittently, in a number of States, but State election seemed as remote as federal victory - and only partly because of gerrymanders.’

‘It also polls well under 5 per cent and could throw up the closest thing to a gerrymander if the previous election's turnout is repeated.’

‘If you're afraid of what a neutral redistricting will do, just imagine what a genuinely partisan gerrymander could accomplish.’

‘The gerrymander would be even more pronounced with the non-voting stock comprising just 870 million out of 3.1 billion - or just 28.9 per cent of the total.’

‘As Polsby points out, the art of the gerrymander is another instance with respect to which the constitutional order has been turned on its head.’

Origin

Early 19th century: from the name of Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts + salamander, from the supposed similarity between a salamander and the shape of a new voting district on a map drawn when he was in office (1812), the creation of which was felt to favor his party; the map (with claws, wings, and fangs added) was published in the Boston Weekly Messenger, with the title The Gerry-Mander.